Page 81

“But we didn’t.” Emmie bumped her shoulder against Kate’s in a quick gesture of affection, and Kate felt her chest tighten, because it was so like Emmie, always these fleeting touches, as if she were afraid she’d be pushed away. “Thank goodness you’re such a smashing driver.”

“I’m trying not to smash, thank you very much.” Kate drew in a deep, cleansing breath, feeling the cold scouring the back of her throat. She’d have had no idea what to do but for Nick—had Nick taught her that? She didn’t remember it. Her memory was of endless sunshine along Bellevue Avenue. But he must have. Otherwise how would she have known? “Nick Penniston showed me what to do.”

“Well, thank goodness for Nick, then,” said Emmie with feeling, and Kate tried not to glance around her shoulder for the shade of a man in goggles and scarf. The dark and cold were making her fanciful. “How can we get around them?”

“We can’t.” Forcing herself to focus, Kate took a deep breath, flexed her shoulders, and readjusted her grip on the wheel. “I’m going to back up until we can turn. We’ll have to find another way. Get that map out, will you?”

Very, very carefully they backed up, retracing their own tire tracks. But the snow had knocked down rotten signposts, and those that were still standing were so blurred they were hardly legible. They backed up and turned and turned again, burning match after match from Emmie’s haversack trying to read the tiny print on the map.

“Cookie?” offered Emmie as they came to yet another illegible signpost.

Kate shook her head. “We’d best ration them. We might need them later.” If the cold didn’t kill them first. “I haven’t the faintest idea where we are.”

Emmie peered at the sky, which still had that overcast aura, as though it were contemplating snowing again. “Could we navigate by the stars?”

“Like Vasco da Gama?” Kate didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Emmie contemplated. “I think he used an astrolabe.”

“Yes, well, we don’t have one of those either,” said Kate. They had two choices, both unpalatable. They could go on, and risk going the wrong way, getting farther and farther from Grécourt, possibly even blundering into hostilities. Or they could stop for the night. “I’d say we should stop for the night and reconnoiter in the morning, but if we do, we might freeze.”

“I’m in favor of not freezing,” said Emmie. With the echo of her old optimism, she added, “Surely we’ll find someone sooner or later.”

So they went on, on roads eerie in their emptiness. Usually, the night was the safest time for troops to travel; the roads were generally thick with army camions, with French or English troops on the move, supply trucks, ambulance drivers going back and forth from the front, the air lit by the flashing lights of airplanes overhead. But tonight, with the storm, the roads were abandoned, unrecognizable. Even the planes weren’t flying.

Kate began to go from annoyed to afraid, genuinely afraid, afraid that their petrol would run out, afraid that they wouldn’t find shelter before the cold claimed them. She drove on, grimly, wondering how long it would be before they would have to stop and rinse their feet in snow water to ward off frostbite. Her toes were dangerously numb.

Emmie was buried so deep in her muffler that Kate could hardly see her. In a very small voice, she said, “Thank you for coming to get me.”

“I was hardly going to leave you roaming a war zone.” It sounded so grudging put that way. Kate tried again. “You know I wouldn’t leave you there.”

“You’ve been so upset—” Emmie’s voice changed; she jerked upright. “Kate! Kate! Over there! To the left—I mean, the right—do you see the light? Is that—”

“It’s a house.” Kate felt light-headed with relief. “A house! And an army camion in front of it—no, two camions. Maybe they can tell us where we are.”

Emmie was already straightening up, adjusting her coat, fussing with her mittens. “I was afraid we were going to run out of essence,” she admitted. “And freeze.”

“I’m sure it wouldn’t come to that,” said Kate, even though she had been thinking the exact same thing. She spotted a man detaching himself from the side of one of the camions, a cigarette tip glowing red in the darkness. “Look, there’s a soldier guarding the camions. We can ask him where we are.”

The soldier pitched his cigarette to the ground, grinding out the stub. “Qui va là?”

“Les dames Américaines,” said Emmie eagerly, half falling out of the truck. “Sorry, we’re a bit frozen. We’ve lost our way. We’re trying to get back to Grécourt, but we haven’t the faintest idea where we are.”

The soldier looked at the jitney and then back at them. “All by yourselves?”

There was something about the way he said it that Kate didn’t quite like. “If you could just show us on the map,” she said coolly, “we’ll be on our way.”

He could do better than that, the soldier said, suddenly very helpful. He could escort them as far as Ham, if they were willing to wait an hour. He and his comrades in arms were just having a bit of supper. Would les dames Américaines—he essayed an exaggerated bow—care to share their repast?

“Oh, yes, please!” exclaimed Emmie, before Kate could decline on their behalf. “How kind of you. Isn’t it terribly kind?”

“Ye-es,” said Kate, wondering if the cold had just addled her brain. Here they were, looking for shelter, and they’d found it. But there was something making her uneasy. “I’m not sure, though—”

Emmie jostled her with her elbow. “Food! And heat! My fingers are icicles. Either that or my icicles are fingers. I can’t tell which.”

“Welcome,” said the soldier, throwing open the door and speaking in rapid French to the people inside. Kate caught the words women and alone.

“Oh, lovely!” said Emmie, and plunged inside, Kate following more slowly.